Meg Whitman, the billionaire former eBay CEO who has plunged an astonishing $39 million of her own money into her 2010 GOP run for California governor, has some advice for America in her new book: "Be frugal."

"I really hate waste," writes Whitman, who is estimated to have spent more than $300,000 on polls and untold millions on political consultants in the year since the start of her drive for California's top post. In her book, "The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life," which hits bookstores this Tuesday, she boasts she comes from a family so thrifty that they reused aluminum foil and tea bags and repaired holes in socks.

With less than five months until the June 8 gubernatorial primary, the release of Whitman's book - listed at $26, but available at Costco over the weekend for $14.99 - is as much a skillfully timed campaign effort as it is a literary one.

Whitman holds a commanding, double-digit lead over state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner in the GOP race and is within 10 percentage points of presumed Democratic candidate Jerry Brown, the former two-term governor and current state attorney general, according to the latest Field Poll.

"The Power of Many" outlines her 10 rules of management philosophy and contains opinions that are bound to prove controversial in the campaign.

She criticizes Google for being too indulgent of its employees. And - just weeks after she testified in a high-profile legal battle between eBay and Craigslist - she slams the Bay Area-based online classified site as a company that didn't protect its brand.

'Like a business'

The book also provides some insight into how she would run the state "like a business," as she has said.

"Whenever you attack waste, one of the first reactions you get is an outcry from folks who say that you are cutting into muscle, not fat," she writes. "People generally hate change. It makes them nervous. My response as a manager is that it's important to cut until you get that reaction."

Whitman's literary outreach to voters places her on a growing roll of political authors. Candidates hope these books, and the attention that comes with them, connect with voters through a medium that is more intimate and expansive than a 30-second television commercial.

She joins San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris - the Democrat now running for state attorney general - who recently published "Smart on Crime." She also joins Harris in collaborating with the same co-author, Joan O'C. Hamilton, the former Silicon Valley bureau chief for Business Week.

But Whitman's book comes at a time when she is facing increased scrutiny about her campaign, which has been run largely over the airwaves. She has spent millions on radio ads, but she has not made a personal campaign appearance in nearly six weeks and has offered no details on how she would meet her goals of cutting up to 30,000 state workers and attracting 2 million new jobs to California.

Her cautious approach and distrust of the news media - many political observers believe she's merely trying to minimize gaffes - appear at odds with her own stated beliefs in "The Power of Many." One chapter in the book is titled: "Try Something: The Price of Inaction Is High."

Whitman also describes some of the considerable hurdles she jumped throughout her career as one of the few female chief executives in America.

She tells of a meeting of CEOs, politicians and philanthropists in Sun Valley in 2000, where a man, whom she describes only as "a prominent California politician," approached her, asking, "And who are you married to?" She said he was visibly uncomfortable when she replied: "He's not here. I'm the president and CEO of eBay."

Praise for McCain

She praises Sen. John McCain, the Republican 2008 presidential candidate for whom she acted as a campaign national co-chair, as a "decent, honest, well-intentioned person of integrity." But she notably makes no mention of his vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin.

About Google, she warns, "there are dangers to creating a perk-filled culture ... the free gourmet cafeterias, free haircuts. ... It can be difficult to adjust people's expectations once they have gotten used to certain indulgences."

Begging for bagels

At eBay, in contrast, "we had Bagel Wednesday, and we had to plead for those."

She says she watched "with great sadness" the news stories about the Massachusetts man charged with murder after advertising for erotic services on Craigslist.

"He is now routinely called the 'Craigslist killer,' " she writes. "I have come to appreciate the character of a company is one of its most vital assets."

And as for her political ambitions, Whitman seeks to answer the ultimate question about her quest: Why is she running for governor?

"I am a problem-solver by nature," she declares. "I cannot sit by and just watch California fall apart. It's time to act."